Sunday, September 23, 2007

Trail Work

Well I finally made it out to a work party on Cougar. I've been trying to get out to one of SRC's work party's for over a year but my schedule never seemed to match up. I guess I just had to try a little harder.

I went out to the trailhead a little early so I could get a 3 mile run in before we started. Everything seemed to be working well but I know I need a little more recovery after the craziness of doing the Slam. I ran 2 miles on Thursday which worked out a lot of rust and kinks in my legs. I also figured there'd be a lot of standing around a waiting for something to do. Luckily I was wrong about the standing around part. If there's work to be done, I don't like standing around just talking about it.

There were about 8 volunteers that started at 10 am. None of us had any idea what we'd be doing when we got there. It turned out to be a pretty good workout. We used wheel barrels to haul gravel about 1/2 mile to a section of trail that needed repair by Coal Creek Falls. It was pretty tough pushing them up some parts of the trail and even harder holding the wheel barrels back on the steep downhill sections of trail.

We finished the repairs about 2 pm. It's good thing because we were slowing down a lot at the end.

Anybody out there that hasn't done this should try a little harder to get out and give a little back. If you can't make a work party then volunteer at a local race. Even one race a year from each of us would be more than enough. You'd be amazed on how much fun you can have working your tail off. And what other time do you get 4 hours of chatting with fellow runners without having to worry about tripping on a log.

6 comments:

Backofpack said...

Nicely done Arthur. I haven't done trail work, but have volunteered at a few races. That's easy compared to your work today!

Anonymous said...

I haven't done the trail work but I voluteered for Tacoma Marathon and was sweep at PCT 50. I agree it's great to give back to the sport we love.

shawn said...

Trail "Work?" I think WORK would be you staying home with the kids while you let Jenn hit the trails. I can of course say this now that I have experience "sitting" the kids. Boy, duct tape sure comes in handy!!

Hey, now you've got ~4 hours under your belt. Just 4 more hours for your service requirement.

Journey to a Centum said...

The National Parks people up in Alaska had motorized wheel barrels with tracks like a mini bulldozer they used to haul gravel on the trails. It's probably harder to find volunteers up there.

Nice work! Thank you

Tony C said...

Arthur, thanks for working your trail off! (or something like that ;-)

See you at 20th Century! I'm gonna kick your arse! (was that outloud?)

*tc

shawn said...

Tony - don't you mean "kick his tail?" or something like that? ;)

"You better bring it." (Quoting "Bring it On" of course.)